Defining Australian Young Adult Literature Through Metaphors of Social Class (An Exegesis)
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Photo Finish (a novel) and Too high, too low, just right: Defining Australian young adult literature through metaphors of social class (an exegesis) by Sam Franzway, BA (Hons), MA th 15 September 2013 Department of English and Creative Writing Faculty of Education, Humanities and Law Flinders University A Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Sam Franzway – ID. 2005103 – Education, Humanities & Law [email protected] – 8201 5781 Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................ 5 Declaration ....................................................................................................................... 7 Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... 9 Photo Finish ................................................................................................................... 13 Too high, too low, just right: Defining Australian young adult literature through metaphors of social class .............................................................................. 322 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 324 Chapter 1 – Young adult literature ........................................................................... 330 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 330 History ....................................................................................................................... 331 Intended readership: who are young adults? ............................................................. 334 Not a teenage novel ................................................................................................... 338 Not adult either .......................................................................................................... 339 Content ...................................................................................................................... 341 What experiences? ..................................................................................................... 343 Let’s not ‘should’ this fellow to death ....................................................................... 346 What is said ............................................................................................................... 348 What is not said ......................................................................................................... 352 Won’t somebody please think of the children? ......................................................... 356 Young adult readers can think ................................................................................... 360 Young adult readers develop ..................................................................................... 363 Chapter 2 – Young adult literature in Australia ...................................................... 367 A brief history of young adult literature in Australia ................................................ 368 Broad studies on young adult literature in Australia ................................................. 370 From Karrawingi the emu to Care factor zero: Mental health issues in contemporary Australian adolescent literature (2000) ........................................... 373 The Construction of Youth in Australian Young Adult Literature 1980-2000 (2007) ..................................................................................................................... 377 Displaced Fictions: Contemporary Australian Books for Teenagers and Young Adults (1999) ............................................................................................. 378 The Australian Dark Ages: The Nihilistic Nineties .................................................. 382 Landscape .................................................................................................................. 385 1 Sam Franzway – ID. 2005103 – Education, Humanities & Law [email protected] – 8201 5781 Bush ....................................................................................................................... 386 City ........................................................................................................................ 388 The suburbs ........................................................................................................... 390 Chapter 3 – Class in Australian young adult literature .......................................... 393 Introduction – Why class? ........................................................................................ 393 Why Australian class?............................................................................................... 395 Definition – A problem of scope .............................................................................. 396 Definition – First things first: which one? ................................................................ 396 An Australian definition of class in young adult literature or As If This Couldn’t Get Much More Complicated .................................................................... 398 Class outside of the text: the book as symbolic product ........................................... 401 Enough of what it isn’t. Tell us what it is. ................................................................ 403 Robin Pope – Class Matters in Some Recent Australian Literature (2001) .......... 404 Elizabeth Bullen – A sporting chance: Class in Marcus Zusak’s The Messenger and Fighting Ruben Wolfe (2006) ....................................................... 406 Chapter 4 – Class as a metaphor for power in Australian young adult literature ...................................................................................................................... 409 Firstly, an introduction to social class as a metaphor for power hierarchies ............ 410 Very Classy: Definitions of social class in Australian young adult literature .......... 410 Poor = good: The sentimentalisation and glorification of the working class ........ 411 Middle = nice: Positioning the reader just where they are, or it’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there .............................................................. 415 Rich = bad: The shallow, cold, wicked upper classes ........................................... 418 Secondly, a development of social class as a metaphor for power hierarchies ........ 427 Movement ................................................................................................................. 429 Down = good ......................................................................................................... 429 Up quickly = bad ................................................................................................... 433 Up slowly to the middle = the defining narrative message of Australian young adult literature ............................................................................................. 439 In summary ............................................................................................................... 442 Chapter 5 – Writing Photo Finish: a narrative journey into the production of a young adult novel ..................................................................................................... 444 What’s it all about? ................................................................................................... 444 2 Sam Franzway – ID. 2005103 – Education, Humanities & Law [email protected] – 8201 5781 How did class come into it? ...................................................................................... 446 Where do they go wrong? ......................................................................................... 448 How do they succeed? ............................................................................................... 451 Win the game, smash the system ............................................................................... 454 Who did it right? ........................................................................................................ 459 Arbeit macht bildungsroman ..................................................................................... 462 External labour: working in the field ..................................................................... 463 Internal labour: it’s what’s inside that counts ........................................................ 466 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 469 Appendix 1 ................................................................................................................... 473 Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 474 3 Sam Franzway – ID. 2005103 – Education, Humanities & Law [email protected] – 8201 5781 4 Sam Franzway – ID. 2005103 – Education, Humanities & Law [email protected] – 8201 5781 Abstract This thesis examines social class as a metaphor to suggest a new way of defining Australian young adult literature. It comprises a young adult novel with class as one of its main subjects and an exegesis that uses recent definitions